


rulers of this world of darkness

by papyrocrat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-17 13:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I pray every day, Dean. I have for a long time</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rulers of this world of darkness

**Author's Note:**

> religious themes, explicit (Sam/Ruby) and implied (Sam/Jess) sex, descriptions of possession including sexual references (Sam!Meg), allusions to torture, anxious thought patterns and suicidal ideation, spoilers through S7

"Do you want to say grace, Dean?"

Dean gives Pastor Jim an adolescent stink-eye. "Dad says that's crap."

"Your dad's a good man, even if his faith's been a little shaken lately." Dean rams his fork into his spaghetti and starts eating.

"Then I guess it's just you and me, son." Sam isn't really sure what the pastor means by "grace."

(Fortunately, he will suppose; he didn't always know just how far it was out of his reach.)

But he bows his head and fidgets with the napkin in his lap. Still, Pastor Jim says grace alone; Sam doesn't know the words."For all we eat, and all we wear, For daily bread, and nightly care, we thank thee heavenly Father. Amen."

Sam's pretty certain that Pastor Jim is responsible for the daily bread and nightly care, but he guesses it'd be rude to point that out.

So he doesn't say anything, just nods a beat after the "amen."

Both Dean and Pastor Jim give him small smiles, though he's not sure why. But peace falls around them for a few moments, and Sam remembers the incantation.

 

++++++++++++++++  


  
"Come on, Sam," his dad barks. "You said you wanted to grow up already, you're old enough now."

Sam catches the bible that flies at his head.

"Damn right, I'm old enough. But I have a chem test tomorrow." Sam hates science classes. He'd like science, if he didn't known what a miserable half-truth it is.

Dad glares, and Sam does his level best to glare back.

"I have a chem test tomorrow, _sir_." They're pretty good at getting into crises right around the time he's starting to have obligations at his new school. He's getting pretty good at having as many obligations as possible.

"And that's more important than the chance to send this son of a bitch packing? The one who almost took your brother's arm off?"

Sam grinds his teeth, biting back every recrimination he never quite gets tired enough of yelling back. _He shouldn't have been there. We shouldn't be here. It's your fault he was even there. Can't we just go be normal?_

Dean looks casually at a point just past Dad's ear. "Fuckin' cocky son of a bitch. Almost had him."

"Don't you fucking get cocky. You're not healed yet, 'cause you didn't have him last time."

"So I'm in tonight too?"

"If your brother can spare a moment from his high-minded academic pursuits and give us the backup we need. Otherwise...." Dad trails off. He doesn't need to make the threats anymore (he never really has).

Sam rams his chem binder, the bible, and their best flashlight into his backpack. "I'll study in the car," he spits out as if it's any kind of victory, and the twitch of Dad's jaw tells him that it was, somehow.

He does study in the car. _Exorcizamus_ , he thinks. _Ex-CORE-siz-amus? EX-cor-ci-ZA-mus?_ Damned if he's going to ask.

So to speak.

Dean hovers as Sam gets out of the car. Dad stalks ahead of them, his gaze welded to the devil's trap under the bridge.

Sam and Dean both holler, but the demon still gets the jump on him, and Dad hits the ground.

"Fuck!" Dean yells. _Oh God_ , Sam thinks, but doesn't say it, there's no air, there's no time -

\- Dad waves, and Sam gags on his relief.

"Hey, asshole!" Dean shouts, and lobs salt grenades and roars and laughs like he's insane because he is because this is all so fucking crazy -

\- but it works, Dean gets the demon under the trap.

"Do it," Dean says.

Sam flips open the book to his page.

"Aren't you just the cutest," it says.

He shouts the words to the exorcism, only stumbles over a few, tries not to hear it laugh.

_Please_ , he adds silently. _Please, let it work, please, please._

Its scream rips the air and foul black smoke floods the cracks and _holy shit_ , it worked.

"Whaddaya know." Dean pounds his shoulder so hard he almost jolts forward. "Nice job, squirt."

He folds his arms, but doesn’t twist away. “Don’t call me squirt.”

By the time they find him, Dad's come to. They carry him back, all trying not to lean too hard, then collapse into the car. "Good job back there, Sammy," Dad offers from the passenger's seat.

Sam glares for a second at the rearview mirror, then flips open his chem binder.

 

 

********

He untangles himself from the warm nest of her legs and leans out of bed for his boxers. "Thank you," he says, and winces. Real smooth, Winchester.

"You're welcome." Jess gives him a proud, flirtatious little smile. "For what, specifically?"

He leans back and lets her settle into his arms. "What, you want a play-by-play?"

"Yes," she says as she yawns.

"Well, not if I'm boring you."

He feels the huff of a giggle against his chest. "Give me the Cliffs Notes."

"Cliffs Notes are for cheaters."

"Says Mr. I'll-Die-Before-I-Read-Moby-Dick?"

"Caught me there. Lock me up."

She wriggles her hips. "Oooh, let's try that sometime."

"What did I do to deserve you?"

"You want the play-by-play?"

_Kind of_ , a needy, childish corner of his mind pouts, but he keeps his mouth closed tight as he drops a kiss in her hair. She sighs a little, but she's already still.

So easy for her to sleep after.

_Thank you,_ he thinks _. I don’t know what I did to deserve her._

(Months later, and then forever, he will imagine a whiff of sulfur, crawling behind his window, urging it to _leave, leave, not here, not now._ )

 

 

******

 

"Wakey, wakey, hands off snakey."

_Shut up, Dean_ , Sam tries to say, but there's a fog in his throat and what the hell...

"Close, but no cigar. Actually, there's a little more cigar than I was expecting down here, to be quite honest. We're going to have to have a long talk about maximizing our use of resources."

His belly flips in horror.

"Take it easy, there, dollface. Or just take it, whatever creams your cheese. Anyway, since you Winchesters exist to be a pain in my ass, it looks like I can't make you do what I need you to do."

_Good. Whatever it is. Screw you._

"Fortunately, there's plenty of other fun ways to -" his own laugh rings in his ears "-kill some time."

_No, there's not. I'm throwing you out. Regna terrae, cantate Deo-_

The pain starts in his arm, shocks through him in an instant. "Doesn't work that way, sweetheart."

_Yes it does. I swear to God._

"Okay, player."

His arm smokes and burns and ugh, smells.

"Yeah. Not so much fun when it's your flesh burning, huh? Well, our flesh now, I guess. Whatever, roomie. We'll argue semantics after."

_After what?_ Sam thinks, before the world goes black.

 

 

***********

 

The forty-second Tuesday, Dean decides he wants to go to a potluck dinner in the basement of the town's church. "You've gotta be sick of that diner, and anyway, maybe in this big ol' supernatural game of pinochle, the god thing beats mystery spot."

Sam shrugs. "Can't hurt to try."

"Sounds to me like it could hurt to try, but what the hell, right?"

And of course, Dean's right, some little old lady spilled her coffee and Dean slips down the stars and even after eleven (twelve) brutal refrains, he still isn't inured to the sick _crunch_ of Dean's neck.

One of the priests rushes through the crowd to insist on giving Dean last rites,to swear upon the sorrows of an Immaculate Mother that he can do a single damn thing to...

Sam doesn't care. He kneels next to Dean, bows his head to knot his hands behind his neck, and waits.

(He’ll lose track of the Tuesdays, but never the refrain of that godawful day. _I hate you. I fucking **hate** you_.)

 

 

************

 

It's not like they couldn't avoid Dean in some seedy motel, he supposes, but dignity is at least as hollow a joke as humanity for him. He needs it, he needs her, and now he's made a habit of fucking in alleys just to get a hit.

Sam Winchester: crack whore.

Ruby's hand wraps around him, a little harder than he likes.

He wipes his mouth with his palm and presses it against the wall in front of him before the streetlamps catch the red shine, before his knees buckle, before he tries to look anywhere but down.

Even full of him, her mouth curls into a smirk.

_God, Ruby, come on_ , he groans, and the hum she gives in acknowledgement drops him over the edge.  


 

***********

"Point of interest, it's not that my children can't say the Lord's Prayer," Lucifer tells him, academic and cool. "It's that I tell them not to. You know how we don't like pretense, Sam."

"We?" Sam regrets it before he even realizes he's spoken.

"Yes, we. I keep telling you, Sam, we're the same. And since you refuse to acknowledge reason on this, we're going to have to resort to sterner pedagogical methods." Lucifer gives him a calm, pitying smile, then lashes out a kick with the force of an earthquake. Adam rolls across the floor. "You get mouthy with me, and you hurt your brother."

"Sorry! I'm sorry. Stop, please."

" _Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us_. But forgiveness is bullshit, isn't it, Sammy?" Lucifer closes an empty palm in front of his chest and pulls the vise out of thin air.

"Come on," Michael says from his dark, far corner. "Back off the kid."

Lucifer plays coy. "Which one?"

Michael rolls his eyes. They fight, then, for a heartbeat or a decade.

Adam coughs and sits up slowly, but there's nothing Sam can do, beaten and chained. He throws his weight as far forward as he can, but there's no gravity in hell, he doesn't have any weight, he doesn't have anything, and the fight is over as suddenly as it began.

Michael nods toward Sam, and his contempt frosts the even Cage. "I seem to recall that one saying he's yours. Knock yourself out."

Adam slides toward the wall. Lucifer turns back to Sam and smirks.

"I mean," Lucifer drawls, running his fingers over a scythe he's pulled out of the flames, "what has he delivered you from lately?"

Michael scoffs.

Adam folds his lip into his mouth and looks away.

Sam pretends he can breathe.  


 

**********

 

Maybe Cas knows something.

_Castiel, are you around?_

He waits for the _whoosh_ of an angel landing, but all he hears is the room's old air conditioner wheeze and give out. Shit.

_Are you alive?_

'Cause if Cas is _dead_ dead, he's totally SOL on leads. And it'd suck, obviously.

He tries speaking out loud. "Hey, Castiel."

Maybe he needs to suck up a little. It’s not like he’s _Dean_ , the favored son, with angels at his beck and pout.

"Hail Castiel, full of enigmatic hyper-literalism."

Nothing.

"Fine, screw you, Cas. I'm going straight to your supervisor." He smacks his palms together and tangles his fingers, then drops the whole knot between his knees and waits for divine inspiration, or something.

“Our Father -”

No.

“Glory be to the Father-”

-who really shouldn’t need his allegedly all-powerful ass kissed like that. Prayers are weird.

“Saving the world wouldn’t happen to get me any points with you, would it?”

He doesn’t get an answer, but he doesn’t get a smiting for his smart mouth either.

“Anyway, I’m looking for a little direction. So if you could throw a little feathery exposition my way” - _that’d be great_ somehow lacks gravitas - “I’d, you know, honor and serve. I just. I don’t know how anymore, if I ever did. Um. Amen.”

The air conditioner kicks back on, so. That's something.

 

 

***********

_You sure you want to do this, Sam?_

Ignore it, Sam. Ignore him.

_You think he's even going to want you back? Maybe he's done. Maybe he'll just kill you, too. Hey, you think he stabbed her in the back?_

_Shut up about her. Shut up about him._

_It's a little on the nose, but. Subtlety not really his strong suit, is it?_

Out of habit, Sam checks the bedstand for stray weapons or socks, but it's empty except for the Gideon Bible. He picks it up, tosses it not quite lightly from his right hand to his left, and winces in relief.

Another old habit is opening any book in his hands, looking for answers or escape or whatever it will give him. The Bible falls open to Psalms, and he almost has time to exhale.

_Like that does a damn bit of good,_ Lucifer says from just behind his shoulder, startling Sam into dropping the book. _Like He's listening. Like He gives a damn about either one of us._

Sam busies his hands with the rest of his packing.

_Well. Maybe a damn. One damn per customer. Because after all, the first one usually takes._

_Stop this. Stop it_. _Please_. He doesn't even know who he's begging any more - God, Lucifer, himself.

_You know, you don't have to listen to me any more, Sam. Me or or Dean or anyone else._

He screws the cap on the borax bottle as tightly as he can, wraps it up carefully in a plastic bag, and slips it into the bottom of his duffel bag.

Lucifer laughs.

 

*****  


  
"God damn it." _Crowley, you fucking liar_ , he thinks halfheartedly, but he's seeping adrenaline by the moment and lightheaded from the stench of borax and it's not even like he's surprised enough to be pissed.

There's a clang from the vents and a whir in the air and for a second, he's nauseous with hope.

"Dean?"

The room hangs still.

For just a moment, Sam waits.  



End file.
